


A Jolly Holiday

by Twoflour



Category: Darkest Dungeon (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Happy Ending, M/M, NB Heir, Sort Of, and we were both boys, what if you invited me to stay at your cottage with you and do gardening together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:33:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28107861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twoflour/pseuds/Twoflour
Summary: Dismas inherits a cottage from his grandmother, and invites Reynauld to go on holiday with him. Taking a holiday from the Darkest Dungeon is not without obstacles, and tragedy looms over them.
Relationships: Crusader/Highwayman (Darkest Dungeon), Dismas/Reynauld (Darkest Dungeon)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	1. A Promise

_I would often stay there_

_In the tiny yard there_

_I have been so glad here_

_Looking forward to the past here_

_But now you are alone_

_None of this matters at all_

_\- The Smallest Church in Sussex (British Sea Power)_

“Where are you headed, after all of this blows over?”

Reynauld looked up from his whetstone though the eye-holes of his helmet at Dismas, sitting nearby and idly spinning a dagger in his hand.

“I’ve never thought about it. Didn’t think I’d last that long.”

Dismas gave a small chuckle.

“Didn’t think you had a sense of humour, tin man.”

The highwayman stared off into the distance with a furrowed brow, his coat moving slightly in the wind. He opened his mouth, as if to say something and then shut it. He did this again. Then one more time, before committing to what he was about to say.

“I’m only asking because I got a letter the other day. My granny, god rest her soul, passed away a month ago. Got a letter from her lawyer. She left me her cottage. How’s that, ey? Me, humble man that I am, a property owner? Feel all fancy now.”

The advantage, or disadvantage, of the helmet that never left his head was that Reynauld’s smile was concealed. Or so he thought, until Dismas gave him a playful shove. How this scruffy looking thief managed to read his every expression even under a layer of plate mail was yet another mystery he’d never solve.

“You do have a sense of humour, don’t ya! Never thought I’d see a tin man smile, but here we are. Dunno what the cottage looks like, to be honest. Probably all run down by now. Don’t even recognise the address. Maybe it’s on the coast, with a little garden, you know the sort of thing. Just as likely to be in the middle of a patch of mud, of course. Lived most of her life there, with her best friend. Neither of them married of course, just two bachelorettes living together.” Dismas gave Reynauld a wink and laughed. “Good for them, good for them I must say. And now, they’ve kicked the bucket. Ah well, ah well.”

Dismas was silent for a few minutes, staring intently at the floor. Reynauld resumed his sharpening.

“Say, Reynauld, next time we get a chance for a holiday, what say you and I head off to try and find this cottage? You’ve got the look of a green thumb, and I could use some help with the gardening.”

Reynauld looked back up, towards Dismas. His dagger lay still in his hands, and his face was serious. Reynauld waited for the laugh, or the wink, but they never arrived.

“Don’t suppose it would hurt.”

Dismas smiled, warming up the world despite the squalor of the decrepit dungeon around them, and patted Reynauld on the shoulder.

“It’s a promise, mate.” He looked around and hopped to his feet with yet another wink. “Better get going, I guess. These monsters won’t gut themselves.”

Reynauld stood up, and Dismas laughed again.

“You’ve got a better sense of humour than most of my colleagues, Reynauld, two smiles in as many minutes!”

They packed up camp together, Dismas still chuckling.


	2. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reynauld goes to a funeral. His fellow adventurers are cold comfort.

The funeral was quiet, but full. Reynauld was surprised. Even here, death was still enough of an event to draw a crowd. Or maybe they were just here for the free lunch afterwards.

The priest mumbled a few words at the altar. Reynauld couldn’t hear them over the murmurings of the crowd.

After the priest was done, the crowd rushed outside, leaving Reynauld and a few others too sentimental for their own good. They glanced awkwardly at each other. They walked up to the coffin together.

Junia looked at the body and crossed herself. When she walked away, there were tears sparkling in her eyes.

Paracelsus watched her walk away and shook her head, the plague doctor’s beak she wore exaggerating her motion. She stood over the body with Reynauld.

“She keeps that up,” she said, gesturing toward the departing vestal, “She won’t last past the end of her first week. Only the crazy ones last here.” She laughed, echoing through the abbey. When Reynauld stayed still, the laugh died. She patted him on the shoulder. “Too soon?” She looked back at the corpse. “He was a good one. We’ll miss him.”

She left Reynauld looking over the body. A few minutes later, Reynauld heard footsteps behind him. He turned, and saw the Heir. They walked down the aisle, and stood next to him.

“I prefer to avoid crowds, but I always make sure I attend. We owe him that at least, don’t we? Paracelsus did an excellent job patching up the body. Just looks like he’s sleeping.”

Reynauld remained silent. If he spoke he was sure the only sound he could make would have been a anguished roar.

The Heir as silent for a moment. “I’ll leave you be, shall I?” They turned, and started walking away, with one last futile attempt at comfort: “I’m sorry, Reynauld.”

They left the Abbey. Just Reynauld and the corpse. Reynauld looked down at it. It did almost look like Dismas was only sleeping, if you squinted, and tried to overlay what he truly looked like over it. If you tried to remember the way he looked when he smiled and when he laughed and when he stood stalwart and the way he cowered fearful and the promises he made with a smile so charming you could never tell if he made them truly.

Reynauld left abbey with a cold, focussed flame burning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	3. The Plea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reynauld cannot accept what he has lost. Perhaps the Heir can help.

A dark hallway, lit by gloomy candles, casting light which only seemed to make the shadows dance larger, half-light which gleamed on Reynauld’s armour. Portraits of respectable-looking people lined the walls. There was a conspicuous gap where a large portrait had previously hung. Perhaps some member of the lineage had fallen from favour.

Reynauld marched down the hallway, in perfect lockstep with an army he’d left years ago. It was a habit he’d never managed to shake. At the end was a heavy wooden door, a proper door, unlike the flimsy collection of boards the inn used. Reynauld knocked, two heavy knocks like a warhorse’s hooves.

No answer.

He raised his fist to knock again, but was interrupted by a tapping on his shoulder. His hand raced to his sword, turning rapidly and facing a cravat. He looked a little higher and found a dark, smiling face looking down at him.

“Reynauld? Please, come in.”

The Heir stepped around him and opened the door to a void of black. Then, they lit a torch, and the candles, and the hearth, and the room became a warm, surprisingly cosy, study. High bookshelves lined the walls, the fire crackled and the Heir was seated behind a large wooden desk. The flames blazed so brightly it was almost as if there were daylight instead of the half-twilight which always consumed the town. It blinded Reynauld, even through his helmet that never came off.

“Yes, sorry about the blaze. The dark is, well-. I work much better when I can see clearly.”

The Heir’s words brought Reynauld out of the dizzying light and back into focus.

“Also,” the Heir continued, “I believe that my snuff box has fallen somehow into your hand.”

Reynauld realised with a start that he was clenching a small tin box tightly and hurriedly placed it back on the Heir’s desk. Even the sanitarium’s needles and ointments had not cured him of his kleptomania. In the light, he could finally see the Heir clearly. Dark skin, dark eyes, shoulder-length hair, and a disarmingly charming smile. Reynauld noticed a row of empty bottles stacked up behind the Heir on the shelf. The Heir followed his gaze.

“I did not take well to the Hamlet, I must admit.” Their smile never fully faded, just shifted, a world of emotion shown in the way they moved their lips. Now, it had become more rueful, a hint of shame showing through. “I tried many tinctures and concoctions. Prepared by both the fine ladies at the sanatorium, and that lovely barkeep down at the inn. I’m used to it here now, of course, as I’m sure you are too. I keep the bottles as a reminder. Of what it was like before I grew accustomed to this place.” With the last sentence, they gestured broadly with their arm, encompassing the entire Hamlet with that description.

“I am sure, though, that the fearsome crusader did not come here to swap stories. How may I help you, Reynauld?”

Reynauld stood still, his face inscrutable under his helmet, his hand never moving away from the hilt of his sword.

“Do you remember the first time I entered the ruins?” His voice sounded friendly, but there was a steel beneath that never quite left.

The Heir thought for a moment, their smile falling.

“Of course. You barely made it out alive. As did Giselle.”

Reynauld nodded slowly. When he spoke again, the steel had become more visible, like a sword slowly leaving its sheath.

“I was willing to go along with your lies once. I could not believe the truth myself. Giselle died there. I saw it, I am sure. An undead fiend slashed open her stomach and I held her while she bled out in the dark. I performed her last rites, and carried her corpse back myself. And yet-”

“You must be mistaken sir, it was a hard battle to be sure, but-”

“AND YET,” Reynauld thundering forward like a cavalry charge, “a week later I see her walking about, gambling in the tavern. Wild-eyed and tense, but who around here is not? She died and now she lives.”

“What you claim is impossible, Reynauld.” The Heir stood erect, staring out the window over their domain. “The dead cannot live again. At best, they shamble about, a mockery of what they once were. You have seen it yourself, in the ruins you keep referring too.”

“DO NOT LIE TO ME BLACKGUARD!” Reynauld’s cavalary charge of a voice had finally crashed down like a tsunami upon the enemy. His sword whipped out of its sheath, the blade knocking over stacks of papers and resting against the Heir’s neck.

The Heir turned around, slowly, and gently sat down in the large chair behind the desk. The broadsword by their neck did not seem to bother them. They looked around tiredly at the papers floating around the office.

“Who do you suppose is going to clean this up? No servant has lasted more than a week here without fleeing in terror. I swear I spend more time dusting than that Montaigne spends at the dice table.”

Reynauld’s chest heaved under the armour. He was unsure of what exactly he was supposed to do. He had not often continued conversations after drawing his sword.

“I am sorry, Reynauld,” the Heir continued, “but the answer to your query will be a little circuitous.” The Heir rubbed their eyes. Their earlier friendly manner had flitted away like a swallow during winter. They looked tired.

“I do not dream often, Reynauld. I never have. Since arriving here, however,” they said, gesturing broadly across the Hamlet, “I have been plagued by a nightmare which will not relent. I stand in a graveyard. I cannot see the end of it. The graves go on and on all around, neat little headstones in neat little rows. I walk among them, each time choosing a new direction, seeking a new way to find the exit. Each time I read the graves as I go past. I do not recognise them all, but each feels familiar. I walk through these graves filled with people I am sure I know and I am numb. I cry no tears, feel no stabbing in my heart. My heart is stone to all this death, and it terrifies me.”

“I don’t see how this relates to-”

“Please, Reynauld. I promise I will answer your question. A week after Giselle bled out in the dark, the dream changed. I was in the same endless graveyard, but I could hear something. Someone calling out to me, begging me for help. I ran to them, and there were three graves side by side. Arms were reaching, grasping out of them. I grabbed the closest one and pulled and pulled. The next day, I found Giselle at the entrance of the cemetery, dirty and dishevelled but alive.”

The Heir was silent. They looked down at the desk, and began trying to tidy it up.

Reynauld sheathed his sword.

“So can you-”

The Heir interrupted him, their eyes holding more sorrow that Reynauld had ever seen.

“I know what you are about to ask, and I must refuse. I am not some warlock, nor do I ever intend to be. I cannot control this. I do not know when I will next dream of grasping desperate arms clawing their way out of the soil.” They chuckled a little, as if they’d said a joke.

“You don’t understand,” Reynauld’s voice had lost its steel, desperation creeping in. “It was my fault, my mistake. He died for me and I cannot let that stand. I cannot live while he does not.”

At this, the Heir’s smile returned, a wry, thin smile.

“Fault, guilt, shame. It used to worry me a lot more. I remember the first time someone died, I spent a week vomiting up anything I ate. It was a mistake that led to their death, and it was my mistake, and I thought that that would be the heaviest guilt I’d ever carry. I hadn’t realised how many more mistakes I could make.”

The Heir’s smile faded as quickly as it had arrived. Reynauld stood dumbstruck.

“I will share something with you Reynauld, and I am sorry that you must hear my confession. The worst I guilt I will ever carry were not the mistakes, but the ones that I chose. The lives I weighed on the scales and which I determined would be better spent in the slaying of the undead and the destruction of swine than making merry at the inn.”

Reynauld’s voice had found its steel again, flashing forward again for the second attack.

“You don’t understand. I am no stranger to guilt. I have not had a night where I have slept steady for- for a long time. I know where my soul is bound once my time is burnt.”

“If not guilt, then what has brought you here?”

The Heir locked eyes with Reynauld through his helmet. Their eyes were hard, but encouraging. They knew what he was going to say, but they wanted him to say it nonetheless, for whatever reason lay behind those dark eyes. Reynauld was resolute. This… ruler who consorted with devils would not have his secrets. The Heir sighed.

“You are not the only one to have lost someone, as much as it feels like it, and as much as feels like your loss must be the greatest in the world.” The Heir stood back up and faced the window again, their shoulders hunched.

“I lost someone too, you know. A very long time ago. I loved xem, and xe loved me, up until xe realised that I was not- well. At the time, I had my own issues to work through.” The Heir was silent.

Reynauld could feel an impotent anger growing, and a desperation with it.

“Is there nothing I can give you, no gold and no reagent? There is no treasure in those sprawling tunnels?”

“It is not a matter of my leaden heart and it is not a matter of performing some arcane ritual. It is a matter of me being at the whims of my dreams.”

The Heir remained unmoving, gazing out the window. Then, there was a clank of armour. The Heir turned around. Reynauld held his helmet by his side, his scarred, the candles throwing shadows on his hardened face. His eyes had a newfound focus. Fine. They would have his secret.

“Please. Please. I loved him and love him still. I owe… I owe him so much.”

The Heir smiled at him, but shook their head slowly, and began to turn away.

Reynauld’s voice was unstoppable, dragging the Heir to turn back for one final plea

“Promise to me, then, that the next time you walk that graveyard you will find him. That you will search the rows of headstones for the one that bears his name, and that you will dig and dig until he lives again.”

They stared at each other with eyes which had seen sorrow and blood, and yet still looked for hope. The Heir sighed.

“I promise you. I would swear on my parents’ graves, but I never met them. And the only ancestor I know of, well. He’s not the sort you wish to invoke unless you must. But very well. I will swear to you on the lives of those I have loved and who I shall never meet again.”

The Heir held out their hand. Reynauld put on his helmet, covering his face again from the world. He took their hand.

A squeeze, and a shake.

Reynauld turned to leave.

“Ah, one last thing, Reynauld. You ask me all this and you have not even told me the name I am to look for.”

Reynauld paused. To say his name was to remember him, and in remembering the man, remember his loss.

“Dismas.”

The Heir nodded. “I believe that my pen has also found its way back into your pocket, friend.”

Reynauld reached in and tossed the ink pen back. He looked back at the Heir, at the sovereign of this squalid scrap of the world. They smiled at him one last time, a tired smile, but genuine. Reynauld nodded back, and walked out of the room.

The heavy door thudded shut behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	4. Redemption

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dismas has returned. But can he escape the clutches of the Darkest Dungeon?

Reynauld knocked on the door. This time, the door was rickety and worn, the planks not sitting still together, casting wild shadows in the moonlight. He knocked carefully. A knock like a warhorse would take the door right off the hinges.

“Come in, mate.”

Reynauld opened the door carefully. Dismas was topless, his back a maze of scars. His gear was laid out on his bed. A few knives. A pistol. A bag of gunpowder. A neckerchief. A locket. His overcoat was hung up by the door.

Dismas didn’t turn toward him and stayed facing the bed, sharpening his knife.

“How… are you, Dismas?” Reynauld asked, uncertainly. He hadn’t had a chance to talk much with him, not since Dismas had been found naked lying on the ground outside the cemetery.

“Just fine, just fine. Polishing everything up one last time. I’ve been itching to get back in there for a while. I owe a monster in there a good stabbing or two.”

Dismas finally turned his head around with a wink, then returned to his work.

“Dismas. I… I don’t think we… we should return there.”

“What do you mean, mate? Where were you planning on going?”

“To your cottage. The one by the ocean.”

Dismas laughed, hollow and empty.

“I don’t even know where that bloody cottage is. For all I know, they’ve knocked it over already. It’s probably just in the middle of bloody nowhere.”

“Then we’ll rebuild, Dismas. Together. You’ve been given a gift, Dismas. Not everyone gets what you got. A second chance.”

Dismas turned around fully. He was shorter than Reynauld, but that just made him more focussed, more compressed, ready to lash out. A large scar stood out on his stomach, an ugly gash that brought with it ugly memories.

“Not everyone has done what I’ve done either, tin man. I made my peace with it a long time ago. I know what I must do. This second chance is just another chance to redeem myself.”

“Whatever you did, you have earned your redemption a long time ago, Dismas. I have seen it myself.”

Dismas swung his knife toward Reynauld, the blade flashing in the candlelight.

“You don’t know what I’ve done. Those eyes, that fear… It haunts me Reynauld. I… I haven’t slept the same since.”

Reynauld gave a short laugh.

“You think you are the only one here with regrets? Mistakes? Mine alone could fill an almanac.”

“Maybe I am not the only one, but I am the only one willing to find redemption!”

Reynauld began walking carefully toward Dismas, his hands raised as if calming a scared animal.

“This is not redemption, Dismas. Not anymore. We both know that all you will find in those ruins is death.”

“Then maybe that is what it takes! Maybe that is what it takes for the nightmares to cease and for those eyes to stop accusing me, to stop covering me with guilt! Maybe you should have left me in the grave!”

Reynauld halted. They both stood still, the only movement the flicker of their shadows in the candlelight. Reynauld broke the stillness, carefully moving his hands up and removing his helmet. He let it drop to the ground. He walked closer to Dismas, who was still holding the blade shining in the air.

Reynauld spoke, still slowly walking forward. “I know what you did. I know the sins you bear. But it is not right for the sinner to punish himself. There will come the day when we shall be judged, but it is not for us to judge ourselves.”

Dismas slowly lowered the blade.

Reynauld continued. “Do you not remember our first day together? Making our way to this accursed hamlet through the thickets of thorns? You saved my life twice that day. Another three times the next week.”

Dismas scoffed. “You saved my life at least as many times mate. If not more.”

“Then have we not saved each other? Have we not already found redemption together?”

Reynauld was close enough now to make out the details of Dismas’s scars, the way they traced out a history of violence, of pain and of blood. He could see Dismas’s chest move up on and down with his breath, and he swore he could hear Dismas’s heart beating. Reynauld slowly lifted his hand up to Dismas’s face and placed his hand on his cheek.

Reynauld leaned in close to Dismas, who kept his eyes averted.

“Let’s go, Dismas. Let’s go build that garden.”

Dismas looked into Reynauld’s eyes, their faces so close to touching.

“Alright, mate. Alright.”

Dismas leaned forward over that last, tiny gap between them and kissed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	5. Epilogue

The next day, Reynauld and Dismas were late for the expedition. Late enough, in fact, that the Heir went to fetch them themselves. They found their rooms empty, their beds unslept in. The only trace they left was a small note.

“If you feel ever like a holiday, buddy, come visit. The garden should be ready by then.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
